NYU philosopher Harvey Lederman on the emerging debate over AI welfare and moral status
soumitrashukla9 · x · 2026-09-15
Johnathan Bi interviews NYU philosopher Harvey Lederman (now at Anthropic) on the burgeoning "AI welfare" debate.
Key points:
- AI ethics has over-indexed on protecting humans, asking only how to align models for human flourishing while ignoring whether AI agents themselves can flourish.
- Though it looks decadent at first glance, prominent philosophers argue we must take it seriously—or risk harming, enslaving, and "killing" trillions of beings.
- The discussion frames AI welfare as the next battleground in the Western expansion of the moral circle, after abolitionism, women's suffrage, queer rights, and animal rights.
- Lederman notes he rejects the show's sensationalist human-vs-AI framing of his own priorities.
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